


biting my nails, more than before

by maunwocha



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Episode: s01e12 We Are Grounders Part 1, Guns, Hostage Situations, Missing Scene, Sky Box Lore, stuff about Murphy's gang!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:07:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25154443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maunwocha/pseuds/maunwocha
Summary: Jasper's nose is bleeding, he realizes numbly, but all thoughts are vacuumed out of his head at the sound of the Dropship door sealing itself shut, trapping him inside with Murphy.He can hear Bellamy shouting Murphy’s name, pounding on the door. It matches the pounding in Jasper’s skull.//expanded/missing scene from We Are Grounders
Relationships: Jasper Jordan & John Murphy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	biting my nails, more than before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redstorms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redstorms/gifts).



> Just a little missing/expanded scene between Jasper and Murphy when he takes him hostage in s01e12. I wanted to explore their dynamic and history a bit beyond what we get to see in canon. I hope you enjoy!
> 
> title from Tired and Sick by Otha

Murphy cracks him in the face with the butt of the rifle, and Jasper crumples. Maybe he deserved it, for holding down the button on the walkie, for telling Bellamy the truth. His nose is bleeding, he realizes numbly, but all thoughts are vacuumed out of his head at the sound of the Dropship door sealing itself shut, trapping him inside with Murphy.

He can hear Bellamy shouting Murphy’s name, pounding on the door. It matches the pounding in Jasper’s skull.

“You try to be a hero,” Murphy rasps his warning, stepping over Jasper’s prone form. “Jasper dies!”

When he looks up, the end of Murphy’s gun is right in his face. The threat feels very, very real. Myles is dead, a few feet away, and again, Jasper is about to die.

When he tries to speak the first time, all that comes out is a low moan. His face hurts, so bad it’s debilitating, and Murphy kicks him for making noise. It doesn’t hurt that bad, though. He didn’t kick him hard.

“Shut up,” Murphy hisses, and Jasper can hear how watery his voice is. Murphy is scared shitless, he can tell. He remembers him from the Sky Box, how every now and then that careful shell would crack and you could smell the fear on him. There is no way Jasper could convince someone like Murphy that he wouldn’t tell Bellamy, and there was absolutely no way he actually _wouldn’t_ tell Bellamy, so here they are: Jasper bleeding on the ground, Murphy above him with a gun.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jasper finally croaks, rolling onto his back. When he catches a look of Murphy above him, he’s stunned by how unwound he is, how badly the rifle trembles in his pale, scarred hands. His fingertips are still flaming, irritated pink from having his fingernails ripped out. Jasper shudders.

Murphy slips the gun under his armpit and leans forward, grabs Jasper by the front of his jacket, hauls him off the ground a bit to shake him. He wonders absently if that hurts his fingers.

“I said,” Murphy growls, eyes wild. “Shut. Up.”

Murphy will kill him, he’s tried to once before. He can’t help but feel a little betrayed, even still. Myles is dead, over there. Jasper can’t stop thinking about it. He whimpers, because he doesn’t want to die, and he shuts his eyes, curling in on himself.

With no warning, Murphy hauls him away from the door, dragging him by his clothes to the opposite wall. Jasper is still too disoriented and hurting from that nose shot to do anything but let himself be dragged, fumbling at Murphy’s hands with his own with no real intention behind it, just to touch him, to do something.

His fingertips scrape against Murphy’s and he yelps, dropping Jasper. He lets Murphy pulls his hands to his chest, lets his own hands fall limp at his sides. So, they do hurt. There’s a beat where they look at each other, Murphy knowing Jasper saw his pain and let him go. _You could let_ me _go,_ Jasper thinks.

Murphy clenches his jaw, trying to lock himself down. His hands are on his gun again, but after looking around for a second, he spots a seatbelt and goes for it. At first Jasper doesn’t understand, until Murphy is kneeling in front of him and tying his hands together. Oh.

“I’m sorry,” he tries, quiet, eyes on his feet. Murphy tugs on the rope, a warning, but Jasper continues. “I’m sorry for what they did to you, Murphy. It was wrong—”

Murphy secures the knot and looks at him sharply, silencing him. “I will hit you again,” he reports, almost bored. He doesn’t really want to, Jasper knows, or he would have done it already. “Or gag you. Maybe both, if you don’t stop.”

Jasper swallows, considering this.

“Even if you don’t want to hear it, or you don’t believe me,” Jasper starts, and Murphy is already moving to stand. “I _am_ sorry and I—ah!”

He flinches, but Murphy stops short of actually hitting him again, just faking him out. It’s a move Jasper recognizes from the Sky Box, one Murphy followed through on just often enough to strike real fear, to make the threat real. He was skinny, but Murphy always fought like he was about to die in Sky Box scrapes. You didn’t want him cornered; that’s when he’s most dangerous.

“Gag it is,” Murphy mutters, dropping to his knee once more, taking another piece of seatbelt in his hands. Clumsily, he ties a knot in the middle for the gag.

Jasper sighs, turns his head away. “Please, please, just let me go,” he begs one last time, but maybe there’s no better nature there to appeal to, or if there is it’s obscured under layers and layers of fear more powerful than anything Jasper could possibly say right now. Murphy shoves the rope into his mouth and Jasper coughs, choking on it for a second.

It comes in waves, but Jasper is overcome with the sensation that this is another world entirely than the one he left days ago, that all that came before can’t help him now. The gang doesn’t matter down here, like lots of things. It doesn’t matter who they were to each other in the Sky Box, hell, in the sky, or even who they were before Jasper got speared and Murphy got hanged. All they have is right now, and right now, Myles is dead and Jasper is next.

Murphy affixes the gag and scoots away from Jasper, visibly tired, hands still shaking.

“Much better,” Murphy huffs to cover it, brushing the hair out of his face. He holds onto his gun again, maybe to stop the trembling, maybe to scare Jasper, even though he’s gagged and bound at this point. It’s working, if so. A tear leaks out of Jasper’s eye, and he makes no attempt to wipe it away, what would be the point? His eyes land on Myles, and he can’t stop looking, and crying. Murphy catches him, scowls.

“Murphy!” Octavia’s muffled voice from outside makes them both jump, Murphy to his feet, gun trained on the door. “Murphy, if you even touch Jasper, I swear to God—!”

Jasper’s eyes flutter shut at the sound of her voice. What is everyone else doing? Where is Bellamy?

As if summoned, the radio crackles to life as Murphy is covering Myles with a blanket, so no one can look anymore.

“Murphy, I know you can hear me,” Bellamy’s voice rumbles through the walkie. “All our ammo and food is in the middle level, you know that. You’re leaving us vulnerable to an attack. I can’t let that happen.”

Murphy snatches the walkie and growls into it. “Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed, you’re not exactly in control right now.”

Jasper chews on the gag. It’s gross, nylon fibers sticking uncomfortably in his teeth, at the corners of his mouth. The blood from his nose is leaking into his mouth too, and he has nowhere or way to spit it out. He wonders absently if he'll choke to death before this is over.

“Come on, Murphy,” Bellamy says. “You don’t want to hurt Jasper, you want to hurt me.”

Jasper freezes, and Murphy turns to look at him. Bellamy doesn’t mean… ? They lock eyes, and Jasper doesn’t hide his fear.

“So what do you say,” Bellamy continues, sounding confident. “How about you trade him for me?”

There’s a flash in Murphy’s eye. Excitement, maybe.

“Look, all you have to do is let him go and I’ll take his place,” Bellamy finishes, deal on the table. Jasper looks at Murphy, eyes huge, watches him consider it. Should Jasper shake his head, try to save Bellamy? Take this chance and hope Bellamy can find a way out of it, better than he could?

Murphy smirks, and something twinges in Jasper’s chest. “How?”

It sounds rotten in his mouth, like he’s lying already, and Jasper hates him suddenly, even though he still feels bad for him.

“Simple,” the voice on the walkie instructs, still calm and even. “You open the door, I walk in, he walks out.”

Murphy considers this, casts a look at Jasper again. Seized by his anger and fear, Jasper grits his teeth around the gag, voicing whatever unknown fury is howling inside right now in the only way he can.

“Get up,” Murphy says suddenly, surging forward to yank Jasper to his feet, once again grabbing his jacket. He pulls him forward, stumbling, to the release lever for the door and slams it up in one swift movement. The Dropship door hisses open once again.

Right away, they hear the unmistakable clicks of several rifles, and Jasper feels Murphy stiffen next to him, squeeze his jacket a little tighter. Murphy’s fear has returned, just a flicker of it.

“Just you, Bellamy!” he croaks through the door. “Unarmed! Ten seconds, or I put one in Jasper’s leg!”

He shifts, and the gun is pressing painfully into Jasper’s thigh. Murphy starts counting, pressing the gun in harder as he does so, and Jasper wheezes, leaning into Murphy without meaning to. The alternative would be to fall over, which strikes him as worse, but Murphy leans away from him just a bit.

“I’m here!” Bellamy calls, stepping through the parachute covering the door boldly as he does everything. Relief rushes over Jasper like cold water, but it’s short lived. Murphy pulls the gun away, then hauls Jasper to the entrance and hurls him out with full force.

Jasper crashes through the parachute and tumbles to the ground, rolling face first into the mud. Mercifully, Octavia is there, and she takes the gag from his mouth, runs her hands over his face, through his hair. He can’t help but feel guilty, that she’s here comforting him when he essentially just sentenced her brother to death, but he likes her so much he lets Octavia baby him a little more. It’s nice, after Murphy’s cruel hands.

“I tried to talk him down,” he reports miserably into her shoulder, watching her quick fingers undo the knot at his wrists in front of him. “I tried to tell him we’re sorry.”

“It’s okay, Jasper,” Octavia whispers, rubbing his wrists softly with her thumbs when he’s finally free, winding one arm around him when she’s done. “Raven and Bellamy have a plan.”

And that’s good, because it means Bellamy doesn’t have to die so Jasper can live. Another relief, though one he’s going to have to keep working for. Octavia helps him rise out of the mud.

Jasper stares up at the Dropship. What would Bellamy say to Murphy inside? Would he try to apologize, too? He certainly has more to apologize to Murphy for than Jasper, which… is kinda why he’s in there, huh. With Raven working on it, maybe they stand a chance.

Jasper resolves to help her get Bellamy out of there, however he can. He just won’t think about what happens to Murphy when they do, for now.


End file.
